i will love you properly this time
by Cindelina
Summary: Seconds before confessing his love to Yuuko, a freak accident leaves him in the arms of death. Yuuri is given the chance to restart his life. He takes it. In the winter of 1992, history repeats itself. Once again, Katsuki Yuuri is born. But this time, he sees Viktor Nikiforov and he can not look away. "I thought I loved Yuuko, but why does this man make my heart ache like so?"
1. Chapter 1

It was just before the start of his eighteenth spring. The cheers of the students rung out throughout the courtyard - after twelve years of imprisonment they were finally free. But Katsuki Yuuri wasn't free - not yet. Yuuri patted down his uniform, and checked his appearance in his phone camera. His eye bags weren't too bad today, he thought. Especially considering that he just made it out of exam season.

He searched past the crowd, looking for _them_. Yuuri made them promise. Made them promise that after his last exam, that they'd wait on the road opposite the school. At first, they were taken aback by his insistence. "I know you have work," Yuuri said, "but this is important."

"Please," he begged.

Resigned, they simply replied, "How could I ever say no to you?"

Yuuri began to worry when he couldn't spot them. They were never the type to forget an appointment, or make empty promises. Maybe he came on too strong, he thought. Yuuri ran his hand through his hair out of nervousness. A million different scenarios ran through his head at once, thinking of all the reasons why they weren't there.

A voice rang out through the noise of the students.

"Yuuri!"

A voice, that without fail, made him smile.

He broke out into a huge childish grin.

All his worries faded away.

"Yuuko!"

His childhood crush stood on the other side of the road. Yuuri decided three years ago at the start of high school, that he would confess to Yuuko his feelings towards her on this day. Ever since he was younger, she would look out after him. At seven years old, urged into ice skating by his ballet teacher, Yuuri touched the ice for the first time. Barely managing to stand still and face planting into the ice every half metre of so, Yuuko reached out her hand to him.

That's where it all started.

Maybe it started out as a childish crush, more admiration than love, but now, Yuuri was convinced that he was in love. Even after Yuuri quit ice skating at the end of middle school to focus more on his studies, Yuuko was always supporting him, no matter what.

This was the culmination of his lifetime of feelings. Today, the day where the cherry blossoms were in full bloom and swept along with the wind, he would tell her. Today was the day where he was to run across the road, look her in the eye and say "I love you.".

Yuuri took a step forward. Then another. Then another. His foot hit the road, and he broke out into a run. He wanted to get there faster. He wanted to get close to Yuuko's smile - closer to the moment where he finally lets out his feelings towards her.

So he was confused, when that smile of hers morphed into an expression of shock. She began to run forwards, her hand outreached towards him. Yuuri, instinctively reached out too.

They were so close. It was now or never.

He opened his mouth. The adrenaline rushed through his veins.

"Yuuko, I- "

"Yuuri!"

He heard her voice.

He heard a car horn.

He heard a crunch.

On the day before his eighteenth spring, the cherry blossoms were stained red.

* * *

His brown eyes darkened as he watched the last few seconds of his life. The world stilled and the image of Yuuko is kneeling over his body imprinted themselves in the back of his eyes.

He looked away. The despair and anguish he saw was too much to bear.

Why did it have to be now? Why did the driver have to hit him, at that specific moment in time? It could've been a minute - no, one _second_ later, and maybe that feeling of regret and frustration wouldn't be churning his heart.

"Oh, you _poor thing_." a childish voice cooed out.

Yuuri whipped his head around to the source of the sound and everything around him disappears. He floated in an endless space. He was vaguely aware of his body, but at the same time he couldn't feel anything.

He'd learnt from high school physics that in a vacuum, the air in your lungs get sucked out - you feel like you're imploding from the inside, but your body is too cruel to kill you just yet. He closed his eyes and waited for the end to come. It was soon.

"Waited your whole life for your chance, only to die at the decisive moment."

Yuuri's eyes snapped open, but to darkness.

Sound doesn't travel in space. He'd also learnt that from physics class. In fact, Yuuri wasn't even sure when he came to the conclusion that he _was_ in space. After all, he died. He's dead. He saw it happen twice, once when the impact of the car hit him, and once when he dissociated from his body.

"Where am I?"

"You're in between life and death."

Yuuri spun around, but he still couldn't tell where the voice from coming from.

"I died earlier."

"That you did."

The sound came from everywhere. It engulfed him.

"...then what am I doing here? If I'm dead, why am I here?"

"I've been watching you, Katsuki Yuuri. And what a truly sad fate you've met." they said, voice strangely tinged with empathy. "I want to know how your story ends. I'm not satisfied with this ending, and you aren't either, are you? I wanted you to excite me, I wanted a proper ending - this isn't what I wanted to see."

Yuuri opened his mouth to say something, but he's cut off.

"I've pulled your soul from the usual path, Yuuri. I'll make you a deal."

"The usual path? My soul? What do you mean by that - and why have you been watching me? Why would you go out of the way to help me out?"

The voice stayed silent. Yuuri couldn't tell if they were thinking or just chose not to answer.

"I'm… not that special." Yuuri breathed out, uncomfortable with the silence. It was true. He never amounted to much in his life - he instead sacrificed most things dear to him so that he could focus more on his studies. He was nothing more than the stereotypical studious high school student, slightly above average in ranking but never outstanding. He was a dime-a-dozen. He wasn't special.

"I think you're special, Yuuri." they responded, a gentle tone creeping into their voice.

"I'll make you a deal," they said again, changing the subject. "You want to talk to Yuuko, don't you?"

Yuuri's eyes widened at her name.

"I do." he shot back quickly.

"I'll let you restart your life again."

Yuuri took a while to process that statement. Start again? What did they mean by 'start again'? It just wasn't possible. He looked into the darkness, stunned.

"...well, if you don't want to, I could always return your soul back to the line."

"What does that mean?"

"You'll still get to meet Yuuko, yes," they said, and Yuuri's eyes lit up.

"But she doesn't die until another sixty years. She lives long and happily."

Yuuri relaxes at that information. He smiles to himself. He didn't want her to bear with the pain of what he had experienced earlier today.

"I'll wait for her. No matter how long it takes." Yuuri says, decisively.

The voice chuckled, almost as if they were expecting that answer. "But who knows what will happen in those sixty years? Maybe she mourns your death for a few decades? Maybe she'll find herself another partner, have children with another man. And once you see her again, once her soul reaches here, she may even have no memory of who you are."

Upon hearing those words, Yuuri froze. He couldn't bear the thought of her falling in love with someone else. Maybe she will be happy, and she lives a great life with a husband and three children.

Knowing that he was less than a second away from that man being him hurts him even more.

He knew this was selfish of him. He knew, deep down, that Yuuko would be fine without him. She could easily find any man she wanted.

But Yuuri wanted to be that man - he wanted to be close with her forever.

"...you said it was a deal, right?" he said cautiously, "What do you want in return?"

"You'll pay it through your second life, I'm sure of it. You won't have to worry about a thing." Yuuri swore he could hear a smile behind those words.

He didn't care if it was impossible anymore. This person's promises could be empty. This could all just be a cruel dream. This could all be fake. But he would take any chance he could get.

"I'll do it."

As soon as he let out those words, he saw a small sliver of silver fall before his eyes.

But before he could process the levity that information, he was pushed backwards and nothingness overtook him.

* * *

When he came to, the bright light overloaded his senses, a contrast to the nothingness of before. Disoriented, he opened his eyelids. He could see the fuzzy outlines of big faces and silhouettes. He could hear a constant beeping in the background. A gasp. Two gasps. Three gasps. Gentle hands stroked his skin. He was back in the real word.

It was the winter of 1992.

Katsuki Yuuri was born again.


	2. Chapter 2

The memories came in droves.

When the Katsuki family welcomed a new baby into the household, the baby was just that; a baby. A slightly wrinkly little guy, who tried not to cry every time his older sister prodded his cheek with her finger. (He often cried afterwards instead).

Little Katsuki Yuuri was your run-of the mill toddler - could sort of walk, blabbed weird sentences, teared up every couple of hours or so. As soon as he was steady on his feet, his mother enrolled him in dance lessons with Minako down the road.

This was where his first memories came back. When his mother dropped him off at Minako's building and he stepped onto the wooden floors of the studio, a wave of nostalgia hit him. Suddenly the unfamiliar scent of the room became familiar, and his legs were itching to move to a routine that his muscles seemed to remember. There was also a feeling that made him feel sad and empty - the feeling of something he'd been anticipating for a long time being taken away. Like that one time Yuuri worked hard to write a letter for his mother and was rewarded a katsudon for dinner, but Mari took it away from him, under his nose.

These feelings and memories were too complex for a four year old to understand, however.  
Once Minako called for all the students to line up, Yuuri shook off the thoughts and stumbled over to the front.

Throughout the years, memories trickled in. Little Katsuki Yuuri would get images of a brown haired girl. Sometimes he'd see unfamiliar faces. Unfamiliar scents. Strange feelings that made his stomach sink. The images and feelings all felt disconnected - like a big puzzle, except Yuuri had no idea what he was trying to make. And Yuuri definitely wasn't making an effort to try and link everything together - he had his own issues. Learning how to write, learning how to read. He simply didn't have time for this. Nothing, in his mind, seemed out of the ordinary.

The penultimate set of memories came when he was seven years old, when Minako-sensei made a surprise visit to the onsen. She set up base in front of the television, as if she owned the place. Yuuri's mother was more than happy to oblige, and set down an assortment of crackers and drinks in front of her.

Yuuri had come home from school and was peeking at the screen from the hallways.

He looked in awe at the small people inside the box. Their tiny bodies slid across the ice in time with their music - occasionally leaping into the air. Their skates hit the ice and every time they did, the crowd burst into applause. Everything looked difficult, but they made it look effortless. His legs began to tingle again, unable to control the urge to copy the movements he saw on the television. When he jumped, quick bursts of images flashed through his mind. Somehow, he could see himself on the ice, reaching out towards a hand. He saw flashes of a classroom, he saw a dog jumping up against a glass wall. He saw himself on the ice again, alone this time, trying over and over again to leap into the air and spin like the people on the television. He saw a flash of silver.

In the midst of this all, his legs had given out under him and he had fallen to the floor with a large crash. It wasn't particularly painful, but Minako's attention was suddenly drawn away from the little box and onto him.

"Are you hurt anywhere?" she said, crouching down to eye level with Yuuri, her hand holding his ankle.

Yuuri shook his head.

Minako sighed. "What on earth were you doing, Yuuri? I can't have one of my best students injuring themselves."

"I wanted to copy the people on the TV!" Yuuri exclaimed, eyes sparkling and pointing towards the bodies still moving on the screen.

"The TV?" she responded, confused. She turned her head back to the direction Yuuri was pointing. Less than a second later, she turned back and grabbed both of Yuuri's tiny hands in hers.

"Great idea!" Her eyes mirrored Yuuri's, sparkling with childish delight.

She stood up. "Hiroko," she called, "do you have a minute?"

* * *

As soon as his skates hit the ice, everything came back to him.

What he had seen and felt before was nothing compared to this - nothing compared to the little trickles of memories and thoughts and sights he saw before.

He remembered everything.

Everything was connected again - those loose images and feelings and scenes in his mind came suddenly made sense. That girl in his memories - it was Yuuko. Those sounds, those feelings of loss and despair and anguish when he died. Yes - he'd remembered that he had died as well. He shouldn't be here, but he is. Yuuri suddenly wished that he could have remembered it all later.

Yuuri was a seven year old. But he was a seven year old burdened with feelings and responsibilities that no seven year old could even attempt to understand.

What felt like a lifetime in his head as the memories, now fully intact, played out in his head was only a split second in the real world. In that split second, Katsuki Yuuri had fallen on the ice. The cold, hard, ground beneath him was very familiar. It was where he had spent a decent portion of his life before high school.

A girl swerved in front of him, spraying ice flakes to the side as her skates came to a stop. She reached out her hand, and smiled.

"Rough start, huh?"

Yuuri also remembered this moment, clear as day. It was when he met Yuuko for the first time, and when he had felt this inseparable bond with her. It was the second time it had happened, but it felt the same.

Yuuri wanted to cry - he wanted to cry because he knew how this ended the last time. He wanted to cry because he could finally see her again. He wanted to cry, because this was his final chance.

So that's why he didn't. This time, he thought, he is going to tell her his feelings properly. This time, he will be that man she lives long and happily with.

He took her hand, and he stood back up, steady on his feet.

"I'm Yuuko. Nice to meet you." she smiled.

"I'm Yuuri."

It's not 'nice to meet you', he thought.

Yuuri smiled back.

* * *

The next couple of years, Yuuri mirrored his past life. He went to dance classes three times a week with Minako. He spent more time at the rink at an attempt to get closer to Yuuko.

Yuuri was frustrated - he had to rebuild that trust and friendship that he spent eleven years of his past life doing. They were close - so very close. Yuuri was able to confide in her, and her in him. But at this point in their lives, they were nothing more than rinkmates. Yuuko was his senior, and Yuuri was her junior. Yuuri had taken their friendship for granted, never realising along the way how much he depended on her.

Occasionally, Yuuri would make a slip up, mentioning something that happened in his past time, or mentioning something that happened in the future. Yuuko always just laughed it off.

"You're a bit of an airhead, aren't you?" she'd laugh.

This time, Yuuri noticed a lot more things. In a bid to get closer to Yuuko, he was constantly at the rink.

He saw her more and more. He saw the way she smiled, the way she tried her best to teach students, her passion for the sport. Slowly, he could feel himself falling in love with her again.

But this time, as a result of spending more time at the rink, he noticed that Takeshi was in the way all the time. The bigger boy, another senior rinkmate. He was always there. When Yuuri sat down for lunch with Yuuko, the older boy would always pop his head around the corner and joined them. Yuuri didn't like that.

The years passed, and Yuuri could feel their relationships being rebuilt. Yuuri was able to relax when Yuuko was around, and Yuuko felt the same way.

Eventually, Yuuri turned twelve years old, and the winter snow was gradually beginning to melt away.

On a night where he would have gone home long again his past life, he was practicing his triple toe loop. It was a jump he would've been able to nail in his past life. He was frustrated - his body wasn't keeping up with his expectations. He knew his muscles weren't developed enough and his body wasn't strong enough, but he still pushed himself. He was getting impatient.

But Yuuri was only capable of what his body was able to do - no matter how much he tried to land the triples, he could barely even get the rotations, much less land on his feet.

He moved around the ice, gaining momentum. He clenched his teeth. Maybe this will be the one he lands. He accelerated, moving faster and faster. Despite his legs aching from overwork, he took off again.

He spun.

One rotation, two rotations. He felt himself falling lower and lower, but he might be able to do it this time.

He couldn't.

Two and a half rotations was his limit.

He cursed, and landed on the wrong edge of his skate, and met the cold hard ice again.

"One more." he muttered to himself, brushing ice off his knees.

"I think it's time you took a break." a familiar voice called out. It was Yuuko. Yuuri felt happiness swell up inside of him as he saw her face. "We're closing up soon, you know."

Yuuri didn't want to argue with her. "I was so close, Yuuko. Did you see?" he asked, moving towards the exit of the rink.

"You shouldn't be pushing yourself, you're going to get hurt."

Yuuri stayed silent. She was right, but Yuuri didn't want to stop. He was completing this jump for her, after all. As childish as it was, he wanted her to praise him.

Yuuri glanced at the clock. He hadn't been keeping track of the time.

"You closed up early tonight."

Yuuko broke out into a grin. "There's something on TV tonight. I wanted to watch it with you."

Yuuri didn't have any idea what she was talking about. "Um, is it the next episode of the Power Rangers…?"

She laughed. "No, silly, it's the Junior World Championships!"

Oh, that. He'd heard briefly about it.

She squinted at him "Don't tell me, you didn't know?"

"U-uh of course I knew!"

He could see the doubt in her expression. "Well," she declared, "either way, you're watching it with me."

Yuuri wasn't complaining.

He went to the changing room and packed up his gear. By the time he came back, Yuuko was in front of the TV screen in the backroom. Yuuri joined her.

When his eyes hit the screen, the most captivating boy Yuuri had ever seen stood on the ice. He had his long, silver hair tied back, revealing the skater's boyish yet mature features. His outfit - skintight, black, sparkly, with a half skirt - teased at the playful androgyny that he seemed to exude.

When the music started, Yuuri was sent over the edge.

Too preoccupied with the results of his past life, he had forgotten the feeling of awe that day he saw the skaters on the television in front of Minako. He'd been skating with no passion, instead trying to conquer the ice with brute force.

But this boy skated effortlessly. He was one with the ice - it was as if that was the one place that he truly belonged. His body moved around the ice, creating music. It didn't matter what kind of music was on in the background, because Yuuri was transfixed on _him_. He watched every movement. The way he closed his eyes and reached his arm out. The subdued tenderness in his subtle, yet confident gaze. The way he skated with love, with passion, and something else Yuuri couldn't name.

His whole life, he'd been living for Yuuko. But in that moment, he'd forgotten about the girl sitting next to him.

He couldn't look away. He was beautiful. His eyes were sparking again.

"Viktor Nikiforov," he whispered.

It was a name he never _ever_ wanted to forget.


End file.
